Post-secondary Education Participation in India and Disparities: An Analysis of National-level Household Survey-based Estimates

In the context of India’s expanding higher education system, this article estimates post-secondary participation among the college-age population using unit-level data from the nationally representative Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)-2025. While the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) provides comprehensive administrative data, it is constrained by time lags and limited ability to capture socio-economic heterogeneity. In contrast, PLFS enables estimation of net and gross attendance rates alongside detailed individual and household characteristics, while addressing key limitations of administrative data, including undercoverage and the omission of nativity and migration. The article introduces modified participation measures—the modified net attendance rate and modified gross attendance rate (MNAR-PS and MGAR-PS)—that treat individuals who have completed at least an undergraduate degree as participants. It examines disparities across location, gender, social and religious identity, economic class and occupation and maps variation across states. The analysis also situates groups and states within Martin Trow’s framework of higher education expansion and assesses progress toward the National Policy on Education (NEP)-2020 target of a 50% gross enrolment ratio (GER) by 2035. PLFS-2025-based estimates exceed AISHE (2021–2022), but reveal persistent group-wise and regional disparities, with shifts in state rankings despite a positive association between the two measures. While most groups and states have progressed toward massification, some have reached the universal stage and achieved the NEP-2020 target.